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This one's a particularly egregious example of party-ID dodging, even for those of us who are used to seeing the establishment media avoid mentioning the political party of almost any disgraced or troubled Democratic public official. Former Racine, Wisconsin mayor Gary Becker, a Democrat, was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for child enticement and attempted sexual assault of a…

What is Katie Couric drinking these days? Who has taken over her body? The CBS Evening News anchor on Wednesday night cited hypocritical positions or actions taken by President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. On the day when Obama pressed forward with using “reconciliation” to pass his health bill in the Senate -- and while MSNBC hosts obsess over Republican hypocrisy in now opposing…

 Without big government, Americans are nossink, nossink—do you hear me!?On his MSNBC show this evening, Ed Schultz bellowed that "small government has never gotten anybody any health care."  Got that, you weak, dependent Americans?  You are incapable of getting anything done for yourself.  Only big government can save you.Here's how Schultz denigrated the ability of Americans to fend for…

Why can't President Obama get a health care bill through Congress? Nope, it has nothing to do with the fact that a clear majority of the country doesn't want the federal government overhauling seventeen percent of the economy. The problem is he is just too darn reasonable.So posits Newsweek's Andrew Romano, who notes that Obama could have gone wholesale-government-takeover on health care and a…

In the latest issue of Vanity Fair, Mark Seal took an inside look at David Letterman's sexual scandal and the love-triangle that rocked CBS's "Late Show" last October with Letterman's live confession on-air. Interested in juicy details and pop psychology, Seal effectively vindicated Letterman for the numerous affairs he had with various employees, assistants, and interns.As the article notes, the…

An article on ABCNews.com aggressively touted fears by the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) that prominent conservative are spreading hate. The headline for the March 3 piece by Anna Schecter screamed, "Dobbs, Beck, Palin, Bachmann Share Blame For Rise in Right-Wing Extremism, Says Activist Group." Schecter interviewed SPLC director Mark Potok and repeated, "Potok said he blames some…

UPDATE: MSNBC responds (read below).On Wednesday's Morning Joe on MSNBC, host Joe Scarborough pointed out the cover of the latest edition of Newsweek magazine, which proclaimed "Victory At Last; The Emergence of A Democratic Iraq" and featured a picture of President George W. Bush walking the deck of an aircraft carrier. However, the image of Newsweek that appeared on screen cropped out President…

"As the House prepares for its final push on health care, there are Democratic members, particularly those from conservative districts, who are facing a hard truth: This is the kind of vote that can end a career," Time magazine's Karen Tumulty lamented in a March 3 Swampland blog post entitled "When A Hard Vote Ends A Political Career." Eh, suck it up, the veteran journalist practically counseled…

More and more it's becoming clear that when Keith Olbermann takes a night off from "Countdown," and Lawrence O'Donnell fills in for him, viewers are getting the same hyperpartisan, hate-filled Democrat talking points.Consider the reaction that Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) got from O'Donnell Tuesday evening after the Congressman called the folks at "Fox & Friends" liars earlier in the day."…

Mortgage-backer has bled taxpayers for more than $75 billion, but is rarely criticized by the news media.

Congressional reporter Carl Hulse took the Democrats' side in a running controversy over federal spending involving Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky. Until Tuesday night Bunning, a Republican not running for releection, had flummoxed and angered the Democrat majority (and the media) by employing a legislative tactic to block a new spending bill that would have extended funding on a variety of fronts…

On Wednesday's CBS Early Show, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer ranted against Republican Senator Jim Bunning's opposition to a spending bill: "it's unconscionable what has happened here....this is about politics. It is not – it was not about anything of substance." [Audio available here]Co-host Maggie Rodriguez began the segment by explaining that Bunning had stopped blocking the legislation…

ABC on Wednesday continued to berate Senator Jim Bunning for daring to hold up a $10 billion spending bill, despite the fact that the Kentucky Republican has since allowed the unemployment legislation to pass. Reporter Jonathan Karl piled on, "Even after the deal was struck, Democrats lashed out at Bunning for causing such a mess." Karl replayed video of him harassing Bunning on Capitol Hill and…

Some faulty memes get repeated so often they get burned in the media's collective memory as fact, even though they are myth. Perhaps the most notable example of that in 2009 was the myth that the New York 23rd congressional district had been solidly Republican since the Civil War until Doug Hoffman's third-party challenge of the liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava ensured a Democrat's victory in a…